Hansen on 'trains of death'

Yeah, coal again

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 3:01 PM on 26 Jul 2007

Still more from James Hansen's email:

Ed Wilson explains that the 21st century is a "bottleneck" for species, because of extreme stresses they will experience, most of all from climate change. He foresees a potentially brighter future beyond the fossil fuel era, beyond the peak human population will occur if developing countries follow the path of the developed world to lower fertility rates. Air and water can be clean and we will learn to live with other species in a sustainable way, using renewable energy. The question he asks is how many species will survive the tremendous pressure of the 21st century bottleneck. It is the question that I asked Sophie, how many of the animals?

We have had only three decades of rapid global warming so far, but animals are already on the run. If we continue down the "business-as-usual" path, the cumulative shifting of climate zones will become the major factor in species extinctions. Global warming before the end of the century already would be at least half as large as global warmings that caused mass extinctions earlier in the Earth's history. Human-made warming, if we continue to put in the air fossil fuels stored in the ground over many millions of years, will be far more rapid than the earlier events. And it occurs at a time of other human-induced stresses on species. Interdependencies among species, some less mobile than others, can lead to collapse of ecosystems and rapid nonlinear loss of species, if climate change continues to increase.

Coal will determine whether we continue to increase climate change or slow the human impact. Increased fossil fuel CO2 in the air today, compared to the pre-industrial atmosphere, is due 50% to coal, 35% to oil and 15% to gas. As oil resources peak, coal will determine future CO2 levels. Recently, after giving a high school commencement talk in my hometown, Denison, Iowa, I drove from Denison to Dunlap, where my parents are buried. For most of 20 miles there were trains parked, engine to caboose, half of the cars being filled with coal.

If we cannot stop the building of more coal-fired power plants, those coal trains will be death trains -- no less gruesome than if they were boxcars headed to crematoria, loaded with uncountable irreplaceable species.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

For story: Hansen on 'trains of death'
11 Comments | Post a Comment

No Credibility

Sorry, but Dr Hansen should know better.

He has destroyed his credibility.
I suspect he is a Nuclear Power stooge.
omegafour.com

by JohnCaley at 7:41 PM on 26 Jul 2007

He is a propagansist

He is a political hack spewing propaganda.

The 100 year old con http://www.InteliOrg.com/archive/FireandIce.pdf on climate change.

In order to be an intelligent reader you must have a basic knowledge. Please do your own homework, a starting point http://www.InteliOrg.com/

by DrColes at 9:12 AM on 27 Jul 2007

I beg to differ

And the website you link describes itself nicely in the heading:

"Quackery is now found everywhere."

No rational thinker will throw away reason and logic to be swayed by propaganda of any form. Intelligent readers of science DO have the basic knowledge and have done plenty of homework to inform themselves.

by katwink at 10:24 AM on 27 Jul 2007

propaganda

wow.

Do a little thinking.

Inteliorg has a good article on "Distiquishing Science and Pseudoscience."

Then it uses Pseudoscience to write the article "Fire and Ice."

Do you understand that?

by trock at 2:17 PM on 27 Jul 2007
[ Parent ]

Troll alert / coal and peak oil

Weren't we talking about ways to keep the trolls from sabotaging discussions? Looks like the problem is still with us.

What I really wanted to mention is the common ground between the peak oil and climate change movements. The two problems are intimately connected. Dr. Hansen sums it up:

As oil resources peak, coal will determine future CO2 levels.

In addition, more expensive oil will make almost all goods more expensive. This includes alternative energy sources and energy-saving technologies.

International tension will increase, as countries become desperate for oil. Populations will resist restrictions on energy.

On the other hand, peak oil will make it impossible to ignore the energy issue. We will be forced to turn to energy efficiency and conservations. I hope we will become more educated and make better choices.

Bart
Energy Bulletin

by Bart Anderson at 11:45 PM on 27 Jul 2007

Hanson is right.

Maybe our great grandchildren will watch newsclips of coal trains loading in the same classroom unit where I watched holocaust videos. If Hansen is half right in his predictions more humans will die from the effects of climate change than the total human population of the planet not too long ago.

Passenger pigeons once numbered in the billions also as did north atlantic cod.

Ask an Australian how easy it is to survive in a climate change regime. Drought, then flood. As a Californian where the seasons are flood, fire, earthquake and drought I am well aware that we live at the mercy of the environment. I watched a good portion of Oakland burn in a single day and all the kings horses and all the kings men could do nothing. A thick fog put the fire out.

Don't think for a minute that we have mastered this.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 1:52 AM on 28 Jul 2007

A Moratorium on Coal Power's Growth

While such a moratorium as Dr Hansen proposes must be highly desireable from a US Democrat perspective,
in that it neatly avoids clashing with both the Auto & Oil lobbies' propagandists,
it is also aggressively useful diplomatically in demonizing the poorer developing nations, for whom coal is the only prospect of maintaining the economic growth rates their yuppies demand.

However, demonizing China & India will not halt their rising dependence on coal -

So will a Dem US president commit to hacking US use of oil so as to allow China & India to avoid the building of another 500 coal stations ?

Or is Dr Hansen's proposal just a partisan policy ploy to assist the looming Dem presidential campaign ?

I think that for the sake of his own credibility as a scientist he would be wise to clarify his position on this point.

Regards,

Bill

by Billhook at 2:35 AM on 28 Jul 2007

Huh?

Comparing coal trains to trains carrying jews? The word ridiculous doesn't even come close.

Peak oil will be less of an issue than people now think. There are a lot of developing countries currently heavily subsidizing their fuel. They will have to stop doing that. This will cause significant reductions in oil demand. There is plenty of oil around the problem is in daily production levels.

by MarkUK at 8:17 AM on 28 Jul 2007

where can we get the whole of Hansen's email?

Whiskerfish

by Whiskerfish at 2:19 PM on 28 Jul 2007

End World Now ! ! !

Want the world to end, quickly ?

Stop using coal.

I wish y'all knew science. Because y'all have no understanding of science I waste my fingers.

omegafour.com

Yes, by all means stop using coal after the world's climate is back under control (after the truth is accepted and acted upon), then use salt for energy production and storage. No ecological footprint.

But the surest way to bring an end to civilisation, then life on Earth in the very near future is to reduce the heat capacity of the atmosphere.

by JohnCaley at 5:11 PM on 28 Jul 2007

Link to the letters

This is a link to the letter and Dr. Hansen's reply:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/NMAletters_20071121.pdf

by Tenney Naumer at 12:49 PM on 27 Nov 2007
[ Parent ]

ADVERTISING POLICY

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